


Party Politics.

by Lanna Michaels (lannamichaels)



Series: Petya 'verse - All Petya Vorkosigan Fics [27]
Category: Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Genre: Alternate Universe, Illegitimacy issues, Inheritance problems, Politics, The lesser known hazards of inbreeding, Time Period: Reign of Gregor Vorbarra
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-15
Updated: 2011-05-15
Packaged: 2017-10-19 10:14:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/199732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lannamichaels/pseuds/Lanna%20Michaels
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gregor's getting married in a matter of weeks and Petya is playing politics.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Party Politics.

**Author's Note:**

> I have made some changes to how this is all organized. The Archive Of Our Own series page that until now has been for Petya 'verse as a whole is now for All Petya Fics (which is what I was using it for anyway), and there is now a series page for just the original (canon 'verse) Petya 'verse. The series link on all the posts so far goes to the All Petya Fics page and I'll continue to link to that, but I've run out of room in the AO3 series notes section, so the chronological order lists are now in each series page, but not the overall Petya Fics page. The overall series page now has links to those, and I'll add back the List of OCs when I get a chance now that there's room for it.
> 
> In short: The original link has not changed and that link will still take you to all fics with Petya. But the chronological order lists are now on the individual series's page, or if you just want to read the canon verse without tripping over the other ones, there is now a go-back/go-forward way of doing that.

Ivan can't believe he's here.

Okay, he can believe he showed up, because Petya never hosts anything ever if he can get someone else to do it for him, which he always can, and Ma Kosti's food could make Dendarii hillmen sit down for dinner with haut lords, so not only is this a once-a-year kind of show, it's also well-catered.

But Gregor's getting married in a matter of weeks and Petya is playing politics. For someone who isn't Gregor or Laisa.

Ivan would usually suspect right now that something ImpSeccish is going on, but ImpSec has enough distractions right now. He thinks they care about Rene Vorbretten being part-Cetagandan about as much as they care about building sandcastles on Beta Colony.

And Petya's playing politics.

This was probably inevitable. You say bastard around Petya and he goes all... Milesish. You talk about disinheriting someone not because they're a bastard, but because their grandfather was, and Petya takes off his gloves and reminds people that he might not be puppet-mastering half the government the way Uncle Aral used to, but he's still a Vorkosigan and he knows exactly what he's doing.

At least Ivan was invited. He suspects half the guests were ordered to attend. When Petya calls in favors, apparently everyone remembers that he helped them with their homework way back when, or something like that. There's no way this is all vote trading. Petya's only had the proxy for a year and a half. Maybe it's inherited favors.

Petya has his General Piotr face on, and Miles is positively thrumming with energy. Miles is starting to take to politics like he remembers he's actually a Vorkosigan, Ivan thinks with a mild complaint. It's probably going to result in Ivan being forced to attend a lot more of these kinds of gatherings. Although Ivan would bet money that Miles only cares about it this much because politicking is something he can do with Petya that puts them on equal footing and doesn't require them to be grubbing around in the mud in the Dendarii Mountains, catching rabbits for dinner. Of course, Ivan's not stupid enough to say that Miles's face. Miles would punch him again.

Ivan figures that, between them, Petya and Miles make up one sane, sensible politician. When they stand next to each other, they manage the impossible feat of both of them making the other's arguments seem reasonable by comparison.

But the Vorkosigan one-two punch works. Miles dazzles people and acts as a hyperactive, but still compelling, distraction, and then Petya hangs to the back and presents himself as a much more reasonable discussion partner. And you still find yourself, on the way home, realizing that you've just agreed to whatever they were selling.

Ivan wants as much to do with this as he wants to fly Dendarii Gorge blindfolded.

But Petya invited him and so here he is. He'd been ready to beg off any marching orders, but Petya hadn't given him any. Just told him to mingle and enjoy himself. What kind of orders are those, anyway? Petya's serving politics with Vorkosigan wine. This isn't a party, it's Petya hitting people over the head and stealing their vote.

And what's Petya thinking, inviting so many stalwarts of the conservative party? No isolationist fanatics that Ivan can see from his perch in the corner, but that's no comfort. Does Petya really think he's going to get _Count Vorhalas_ , of all people, to vote to reconfirm a Cetagandan bastard?

No wonder Petya's packed the room with Vorkosigan puppets. He's going to need the numbers to overwhelm the enemy.

Ivan's been trying to stay away from all of the stunner fire, but he's been mostly unsuccessful. Petya's been looking very calculating ever since he hugged Ivan after Ivan had gotten his blue tabs, like now he's deciding to remember all those stories he used to tell Ivan about how his da was great at playing politics. One Captain Vorpatril isn't interchangeable with another one, but, well... Petya had hugged him. And looked tearfully nostalgic. Ivan's stubborn self-preservation has melted in front of less.

Not that Ivan's going to stop complaining loudly when Petya uses him for his voting proxy, you understand. Certain standards of resistance have to be kept up, or maybe Petya might start thinking that Ivan enjoys it or something like that. And he doesn't. Spending a morning in the Council chamber in his red-and-blues while Gregor, he just knows it, silently laughs at him, and everyone else pities the Vorkosigans for having died out so much that a little Vorpatril is the best they can do for a voting proxy, is not Ivan's idea of how best to skip off from Ops for a few hours.

And General Cipres is always so dry when Ivan returns. Ivan shudders to think about the gossip.

But tonight could be worse. Ivan's just here as a spectator. He isn't supposed to convince anyone of anything, not like when Petya tries to use him as a prop to demonstrate the merits of rewarding talented young officers with a tour of embassy duty to expand their horizons. Because Ivan's tour on Earth, for the record, had been begged from Gregor to get him away from Vorbarr Sultana after Miles and then, well, Gregor and Miles had combined their efforts to make life a living hell for Ivan in the capital. Expanding his cultural horizons hadn't been the point, expanding his life expectancy had been.

Ivan will sleep a lot better at night when his relatives stop being so scandalous and/or stop trying to get themselves killed in new and exciting ways. Either one. He's not picky.

Bloody politics. Bloody Vorbarr Sultana. Bloody Vorkosigans and their bloody politics and their quite excellent wine.

Ivan feels appropriately disgruntled about it all and finishes off his glass of wine. He grabs another one and little Patrick Vorinnis, looking halfway to terrified and back, takes a step back from where he'd been grabbing for the same glass and apparently decides tonight is the best time to start calling Ivan 'sir'.

Damn cadets. "You don't have to call me that," Ivan tells him, exasperated.

"Yes, sir," Patrick says, and then scurries off.

And, damn it all, when did that happen? When did cadets start to look like little kids who shouldn't be allowed anywhere near weapons, let alone within spitting distance of the Academy's considerable arsenal?

Ivan looks around the room for Uncle Tim, because if Uncle Tim's trying to get Patrick some political experience, then tonight, when Petya's not even pretending that he's the harmless Vorkosigan lord, must be like throwing him to the wolves.

Ivan reminds himself that he was younger than that when he tackled Count Vordrozda and his needler. But that might be just making his point again. Damn cadets.

"Ivan!" By Vorrutyer says. "What a surprise."

Oh, and damn Vorrutyers, too. "By," Ivan returns. "I could say the same. I thought you were allergic to this."

"Oh, I am," By assures him. "But Petya wanted a Vorrutyer. He didn't invite Richars, you see. So I get to represent the family. Lucky me."

"Lucky you," Ivan agrees dully.

"I have to say," By says, looking around at the milieu, "that this isn't what I'd expected when Cousin Piotr ordered me to put on my House uniform and come drink free wine. I know the Vorkosigans have owned the Vorbretten vote since the early days of the Regency, but this is a little much even for them. But I'm sure their allies appreciate knowing that the Vorkosigans will bring out the good wine for them, too, if they should need it."

Ivan frowns, picking that apart. "He... By, forget I asked, but is Petya trying-- is Petya killing two political birds tonight?" Ivan desperately hopes not. By is already enough of a trial. Count Byerly Vorrutyer would be a nightmare. Ivan doesn't need those kinds of complications tonight.

By shudders. "Certainly not. They let serving officers spit that kind of profanity? I don't want the Countship. Even _if_ Petya could shove me into it. Everyone knows he won't give Richars the pleasure of his vote, but if Petya's maneuvering on behalf of anyone for the Vorrutyer Countship, it's news to me. And I wouldn't think he'd have time."

"I wouldn't have thought he'd have time for this," Ivan says, nodding in the general direction of the crowd. "I've seen Petya's schedule. It makes docking schedules look simple."

"Your time, on the other hand," By begins.

"Yes," Ivan says, "and what exactly was Lady Donna doing on Beta Colony?"

"I'll let her explain it when she gets back. You're still going to meet her at the shuttleport?" By asks.

By usually never lets anyone know that something matters to him. Whatever Lady Donna's been doing, it must be serious. _That's_ certainly something ImpSeccish. Too bad that Ivan can't get General Allegre in a conversation without having a sneaking suspicion that Allegre is very smugly laughing at him and so loses all train of thought and flees from the field of battle. Why, oh why, did Petya decide to fall in love with the head of ImpSec? Surely there are more convenient victims. Like, oh, everyone else on the planet. And it's not like Ivan would expect Allegre to tell him anything. So there's no point to that, thankfully, so Ivan will just have to wait until Lady Donna deigns to make her grand entrance and tell him what's going on.

"Yes," Ivan says. And then just because By is as allergic to politics as Ivan is, Ivan asks, smugly, "So, Lord Byerly, what do you think about all this?"

By raises an eyebrow at him. "I think the contamination of the bloodline happened three generations ago, so with the way we're all inbred, it's not just Rene Vorbretten who has to be concerned. Not that I expect any of these stogies to have done the family tree math over this."

"People marry Vorrutyers, even though you're all mad," Ivan says.

"Saying something like that with your back to Petya so you don't know if he can hear," By says admiringly. "You're braver than I thought."

Ivan once nearly called Petya a bastard to his face. He's gotten away with worse. He shrugs. "Petya agrees with me. You've heard him talk about Richars. He prefers Vorrutyer madmen to Vorrutyer politicians. Richars is the sanest of you lot and I think Petya'd vote for Lord Midnight before he'd vote for Richars."

"Yes, Donna's counting on that," By mutters.

Aha, so Lady Donna does have an alternate heir hidden up her sleeve somewhere. And he was being hidden on Beta Colony? Typical Vorrutyers and their unending obnoxiousness about their inheritance squabbles. "Does Petya know about this, then?" Ivan asks.

By looks worried for a moment, but covers it up by taking a long, appreciative sip of his wine. "I hope not," he eventually says.

"This isn't another clone, is it?" Ivan asks. "Pierre was a lot of things, but I wouldn't have thought any Count would deliberately clone himself to be his own heir."

"You're terrible at being patient," By says. "What a surprise."

Ivan rolls his eyes at him. "Fine, have your mysteries," he says.

"I shall," By says. He gives Ivan a smile that does nothing to make Ivan think that meeting up with Donna, with or without some acknowledged Betan clone of her brother, is as good an idea as he'd thought. Too late now, he's already agreed to do it. This smells too much like politics. Ivan hates politics, and if he wants to get dragged into it, he has enough relatives trying to do that to him. He doesn't need more.

"This isn't anything dangerous, is it?" Ivan asks.

"Would I do that to you?" By asks in return.

"Yes," Ivan says. "You would." By's always been one of those town clowns who make Ivan feel very grateful that he's not one of them, if those would have to be his friends if he were. Ivan likes a drink as much as the next Vor, but he has no interest in making a career out of being drunk and scandalous.

"Fear not, Ivan," By says, patting him on the arm. "I just want you to greet an old friend, returning from a long trip. You're a friendly face to greet her on her return. Nothing more."

That's pure bullshit, but this isn't the time or place to pin By to a wall and demand to know what the hell is going on, and Lady Donna should be arriving soon, so By's right and Ivan will just have to be patient.

Thankfully, By spots a more tempting target for his wit across the room and saunters over. Ivan watches him go and then finishes off his own glass of wine, because he deserves it after talking to a Vorrutyer.

Ivan ducks through the rest of the stunner fire with aplomb, he has to say, and he congratulates himself on not mortally insulting anyone or sparking off another round of an ongoing feud -- really, Ivan thinks with renewed complaint, what _was_ Petya thinking when he invited both Count Vortaine and Count Vorvolynkin? -- and also, no one tried to kill him or marry him off to themselves, their sisters, their daughters, or, as had happened once, to Ivan's unmitigated horror, their ex-wife, so tonight counts as a win.

The last of the guests leave and Ivan snags a few pastries to celebrate his victory. He heads to the library with his loot. Petya looks strained around the eyes and exhausted and Ivan hands one of the stray left-over pastries to him. Petya takes it with a weary smile of thanks.

"Tonight went well, I thought," Ivan says.

"Well enough," Petya sighs. "Were you going to head to bed now?"

Ivan's room here is always made up for him whenever he attends any kind of nighttime event, standing orders from when he was still a kid. "Thinking about it," Ivan says. "Were you?"

Petya shakes his head. "Guy... Alexei Vortala relieves him on the hour, so he'll let me know then if he can come over." He sighs again. "It's unlikely, but considering that the only times we're managing to see each other is when we're telling each other that we can't see each other, I'll take this over nothing. And we knew it was going to be this bad when we started this. Our secretaries keep finding time here and there for us to have a quick lunch or dinner on the sly, but it's timed down to the last second. I'll be relieved once Gregor's safely married and I stop having to spend two nights a week sleeping on the couch in my office."

Ah. So Petya's drunk, then. Or maybe he's simply decided that Ivan really needs to know all the many ways that Petya isn't having sex because of Gregor.

"Do you think you got the votes tonight?" Ivan asks.

"Some, not enough," Petya says. "Vorhalas might come around, I threw a lot at him about precedents. I hope Gregor's only letting it get this far because he's too distracted by his upcoming marriage and trying to get everyone to accept that he's marrying a Komarran to stamp it out. It should never have gotten this far. This case is a mess of precedents that we do not need or want. Even if we didn't owe the Vorbrettens a great deal, I'd still be publicly opposed to overthrowing a ruling Count just because something inconvenient was dug up in his family tree."

Oh, sure. And the fact that it's bastardry has nothing to do with it. Well, maybe if it were a mutation, Petya would be this upset, too.

"Rene himself isn't a bastard -- if only that were the trouble -- and we can neither allow nor afford a precedent of digging through family histories to find bastards or other excuses to try to disinherit a ruling Count. Which Vorhalas nodded thoughtfully over, but said nothing. But he can read gene scans," Petya says obliquely. "Not like everyone who abstained... but that's ancient history."

"Uh-huh." Like Ivan said. Petya's taking this entirely too personally. "And Rene was confirmed, he didn't take it over like Richars is trying to do."

"Exactly," Petya says, sounding pleased that someone's agreeing with him instead of telling him that they're going to have to disappoint him by backing Sigur's claim. "And there is a clear case to be made that the process of confirming an heir _by its very nature_ legitimizes a bastard. It's a very public declaration of acknowledgement and inheritance, and the Vorbrettens have had a Count's heir continuously since the Time of Isolation, so Sigur's entailment claims are _entirely_ baseless. Each Count had his heir confirmed and acknowledged that heir publicly as a son, and then the full Counts voted confirmation. And even beyond that, it's not like they didn't have wills. I don't like this challenge at all. And if Gregor actually lets this come to a full vote, I'm going to have words with that boy. But his capital is all tied up over this soletta mirror business, he told me, so I'm on my own. But he'll listen to me if it comes on appeal."

Vorish nepotism, always good for something. "But you think you can get them to come around? Even Vorhalas?"

"Maybe," Petya says. "And there are a lot of maybes here."

Miles's always said that Petya has the strangest leverage over Vorhalas. Ivan worries his bottom lip between his teeth. "Does Count Vorhalas owe you any favors?"

Petya smiles. "No, not a single one."

"Oh," Ivan says. "Do you have any, I don't know, strings or leverage?"

"No, when I have to get him around, I usually play the sympathy card to the memory of his son. _Carl would have_ , you know. Carl would have wanted this or that, or Carl would have liked it, or Carl really hated when this happened, and that's not a card I can play more than very, very rarely and for only very specific things that, well, Carl would have had an opinion on. And he's been dead for thirty years. The Count's not a fool. If I try to use Carl's memory for my own political purposes, he will hang me out by my toes and I'll have deserved it."

Right, Carl Vorhalas. The one Petya was in school with, the one whose name is carved shakily into the wood on the bottom one of the chairs in the First Parlor, with Petya's beneath it and the date. The one who died for dueling, not the one with the soltoxin. "What about... um, Evon's memory?"

Petya flinches. "I'm not playing that dirty in an inheritance squabble," he says, sounding very offended. "And I wouldn't do that to Evon's _father_."

Then who would he do it to? Lord Vorhalas? "Okay," Ivan says, holding his hands up. "I believe you."

"My own inheritance squabble," Petya says, distracted by whatever it is that goes on inside his head when he's plotting. "Well, I didn't even need to push. I showed up, I said, hello, Count Vorhalas, how are you, and he said yes, he would vote for my soltoxin-damaged heir, and then the rest of the conversation went without difficulty. I don't need to guilt him if he's already doing it to himself, and this whole thing has _nothing_ to do with Miles or military poisons or attempted coups. It's just Counts not being able to see their noses on their inbred faces."

"Um, yeah," Ivan says. "Three generations ago, we're all really inbred, this isn't just Rene who has to be concerned or who has a problem." And Byerly parroting one of Petya's arguments isn't doing anything to help Ivan's suspicion that Petya really would try to shove Byerly into the Vorrutyer Countship if he had time for it. Or if he's actually trying right now and soon Ivan will be dragged into helping in that one, too. "What did Vorhalas say to that?"

"He didn't. I didn't say anything to him about it. Yet." Petya frowns. "I'm still deciding if I will. Bringing Evon's son into things... I haven't decided yet how dirty I'm willing to play this. The old Count Vorbretten had three sisters. Lady Coralie, his twin, was undoubtedly a Cetagandan bastard, too. But both the other sisters were born during the war. If the next-oldest one was a Cetagandan bastard, then Vorhalas has a problem. Evon's wife is descended from her, which means that Evon's son is, as well. Vorhalas would then need to get himself a different heir, and at his age. Gregor always makes Counts wait at least two years between them petitioning him to disinherit their heir and granting them their petition, so that hot heads have a chance to cool. How much is Count Vorhalas willing to risk on him living two more years? Is he willing to risk his District to an inheritance squabble between Evon's son and one of the Count's nephews?" Petya rubs at his temples. "But that's a monstrous thing to do to an old man who has never been anything other than kind to me. And Arina would never forgive me, and hers isn't a friendship I am particularly willing to sacrifice to political maneuvering. But yet... the precedents here are disgusting."

"But Vorhalas can read a family tree, too," Ivan says. "He's got to have already taken that into account."

"For the most part, no one's looking outside the male line yet," Petya says. "Which is a typically Barrayaran thing to do, to borrow Cordelia's phrasing, but I can't complain too much. I got Count Voraiken to split from his friends because he's descended from Lady Coralie. He isn't willing to risk his inheritance over someone noticing that the female line is descended from Cetagandans, too, and deciding that that's a problem."

"Redrawing everyone's family tree is going to be the newest fad, isn't it?" Ivan asks fatalistically.

"It's been worse," Petya says. "When the Regency started, everyone who could claim descent from a Vorbarra, which is _everyone_ , was examining their descent carefully. Vordarian wasn't even the closest of Gregor's relatives who could have tried for it."

No, that was Uncle Aral. "Rene looked well tonight," Ivan says, determined to change the subject. "Very, um. Very determined."

"He doesn't have much of a choice," Petya says. "But he's putting up a brave front about it, the poor boy. I hate this scandal," Petya continues, distractedly poking at the remains of the pastry. "Your mother's not happy with it, too. She tells me that two betrothals to Vorbretten girls have already fallen apart over this, and one of them wasn't anywhere near the right line to have been part-Cetagandan. The other one, your mother says, got herself a gene scan after the betrothal broke, and found out that she wasn't part-Cetagandan either. Or as much of a Vorbretten as she should be. But the family's doing much better at keeping _that_ one from getting out. And no one's been divorced over it yet, although your mother tells me that's just a matter of time."

Ivan never could keep all of his family tree straight in his head, so he has no idea how his mama and Petya between them seem to be able to keep half of Vorbarr Sultana's in theirs. "You had the Vor family tree as a mobile over your crib, didn't you?" Ivan asks.

Petya laughs shortly. "No, my grandfather wasn't that-- here, you can see my calculations, if you'd like." He hands Ivan a handful of flimsies. "I had Rene reconstruct his family tree over this, and it's in there, too, among the voting calculations. It's not going well. Miles thinks he should let it slip, accidentally, that he was involved in the Dagoola rescue, because certain Counts were grumbling that the Vorkosigans are starting to look like Cetagandan sympathizers and how old Piotr is rolling in his grave over what the young one is doing. Miles decided to be offended on my behalf."

"Allegre would go blue if Miles said anything about Dagoola," Ivan says.

"No, there's a limit to how paranoid ImpSec is letting itself be about it," Petya says. "Certain part of it... they won't officially deny that it happened. They aren't going around telling everyone about it, because we do not need to insult the Cetagandans any more than we already have, but if asked, we don't deny it. The Marilacans are promoting Admiral Naismith as a hero. Miles's official cover still stands, and we will still officially say that Admiral Naismith is an unacknowledged clone, but no one is pretending to actually believe it anymore. Diplomatic discussions with the Marilacans are, as you can imagine, _excruciating_ at present. They want to fete Miles Vorkosigan. We, on the other hand, barely averted war with Cetaganda over it all, and don't want to rub it in. But Miles is in a Countship line and is an Imperial Auditor and the Emperor's Second, so we can't exactly do anything that might indicate that we're ashamed of him or we repudiate his actions, so it's a very delicate dance with the Marilacans over it."

"Diplomacy," Ivan observes, trying to remember that quote, "Miles likes to say, is the art of... something."

"Not letting him have any fun," Petya says dryly. "To hear him tell it." Petya starts picking the pastry apart. "What did you think about tonight?" he asks, looking up, and, yes, Ivan thinks, he was perfectly correct in worrying that Petya was going to try to shove him into being a pawn in his political agenda.

"I don't like these things, Petya," Ivan says plaintively, "you know that. Be ignored, that's my motto."

"I know. Mine, too, mostly," Petya says. "It's a shame you didn't pay a word of attention in your diplomacy classes; you could have picked up tips."

"I paid attention," Ivan objects. "How not to start wars, that kind of thing. I have a lot of practice at not starting wars. _And_ I had embassy duty, so I got to spend some time actively not starting wars, too."

Petya smiles ruefully. "You do better than Miles, that's true. Although that time on Cetaganda, Ivan... what were you thinking?"

"That Miles probably knew what he was doing?" Ivan tries. "Look at it my way, Petya. I _still_ don't know if he was under orders from Illyan when he was there. When it comes to Miles, I'm always just along for the ride. You know that. And if it was an official ImpSec covert ops mission, how was I supposed to stop him? And if it wasn't, Miles should have told me that himself," Ivan says, nodding in satisfaction at that reasoning. It's Miles's fault. That's right. It's always Miles's fault. Ivan's just along for the ride, and if he's to have anything more to do with it, Miles will certainly let him know. He always does.

"Goddamn ImpSec," Petya mutters. "Always blowing things up and leaving it to the rest of us to clean up after their disasters and try to normalize diplomatic relations. Again."

"Yeah, well," Ivan starts. "They do that sometimes."

"Guy says I can't make these generalizations," Petya continues as if Ivan didn't say anything, "because the only times I'm read in is when things have already started exploding, and I don't have to be yanked from a room and told about the _successful_ missions. But from the point of view of someone who didn't spend half his career involved one way or the other in covert operations... they don't ever clean up their own messes, so what do they care?"

What, oh what, Ivan wonders, did he do to deserve to keep getting Petya when he's exhausted or drunk or missing his boyfriend? "Probably a lot," Ivan suggests. "Covert operations is, you know, covert. They want to keep it that way."

Petya glances off towards the secured comconsole, and then looks back at Ivan. "Yes, they do. But if you want to be really covert? Learn to disappear. You want to be ignored? Be really boring. Go off about horses for twenty minutes. I can get someone's eyes to glaze over in under a minute."

That's not a special skill. Every Vor lord Ivan knows who's around Petya's age and older can do that without even trying. Ivan's done it a few times, too. It's really not difficult. Just pretend to be... Ivan begins to see Petya's point.

"Being ignored," Petya starts, pressing two fingers against the corners of his eyes. "Probably the first thing you learn in diplomatic training is how to be ignored and the second thing you learn is how to be _really_ ignored and then after a few months you're supposed to learn how to take over a room and command everyone's attention so no one notices the spies sneaking around the back and in the corners. Be the distraction when needed, be completely ignored when needed. ImpSec thinks it knows how to fade, but no one ever overlooks a man in Horus eyes standing at the back of the room. Not even on other planets. Not even when he's conveniently not wearing his eyes. ImpSec is conspicuous. And an ImpSec man in covert ops could never get into the kind of events I can. That's why Negri wanted me. That's why he got Timmy Vorinnis, why Illyan stole Alexei Vortala over his uncle's objections... it's because of everything we can do that a prole in ImpSec simply can't without wearing his uniform. It didn't work too well, but, well, even the great Negri couldn't foresee that two wars in less than two years would kill most of his hand-picked Vor lords and promote half of the ones who remained to their Countships."

Ivan doesn't usually think of Uncle Tim as an ImpSec medic, except for the few times he'd gotten banged up while in the tender care of his older cousins who were supposed to be watching him and instead decided that testing Vorinnis House for hidden passages was a much more interesting use of their time. "Serg has been dead for thirty years," Ivan reminds Petya hesitantly. "He's really, really dead. Never recover the body kind of dead."

Petya stares at him. He looks shocked. Ivan wonders if he should be insulted by the implication. "I-- Ivan, that--"

Ivan shrugs. "You're the one who's always talking about him when you start freaking out about illegitimacy. Or your grandfather," he adds as an afterthought. "But mostly Prince Serg."

Petya covers his face with his hands for a few seconds before dropping them and looking Ivan in the eye. "You're right," he says shortly. "And Guy's right, I'm getting really transparent with age," he continues softly, and he glances over at the comconsole. Which takes the perfect, perfect moment to chime with an ImpSec priority code. Ivan could kiss General Allegre, he really could. If Petya and Allegre and ImpSec combined wouldn't kill him for trying.

Ivan stands up hastily. "I'm, uh, going up to bed." He gives Petya a quick salute. "Thanks for tonight, it was wonderful, you have excellent wine," he recites, and Petya lets him go with a roll of his eyes in his general direction on the way to answering the call.

Ivan munches on the last of the pastries on his way up the stairs and congratulates himself again for getting out of the Vorkosigans being actively political without any extra duties or anyone trying to kill him. It's an undervalued skill, but one that Ivan has spent many years honing.

He just hopes he can keep this up through both the Vorkosigans and the Vorrutyers trying to drag him into their schemes.


End file.
